It didn’t take long for the hypothetical cable/CLEC merger machine to make its first move following the FCC’s recent relaxation of the rules. On the west coast late this week, Wave Broadband and Black Rock Cable announced their plans to merge, bringing together a triple play footprint and a dense metro fiber business under one roof.
The names are a bit misleading though, as it is Wave Broadband that offers cable TV, voice, and broadband to 390,000 residential and business customers along the Washington, Oregon, and Northern California coasts. Black Rock cable operates 833 route miles of fiber with 959 on-net buildings (at last count in June for my metro fiber and on-net building statistics page) across three counties north of Seattle.
The combination will boost Wave Broadband’s ability to serve enterprises across northwest Washington and the expertise to take the same deep fiber business model into additional geographies. It is also possible that Wave Broadband could follow up with other fiber assets that fit with its regional footprint. Financial terms of the deal with Black Rock were not disclosed.
Whether this is the first of a new wave of M&A or just an isolated case remains to be seen.
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Categories: Cable · Mergers and Acquisitions · Metro fiber
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